When women ask for flexible work arrangements their managers often hear them ask to work part-time. At least that’s the conclusion I’ve come to when I’ve been out talking to companies about creating more flexible work opportunities for women.
A few minutes after I’ve mentioned the ‘flexible’ word in a conversation, it’s amazing how quickly they respond with a comment about part-time workers.
We have to pull the two words apart: working flexibly is not the same as working part-time. The latter is about working less than five-days a week, generally in the office. The former covers a vast array of working arrangements that could include, but is not limited to, part-time.
Some examples of flexible working include: working full-time but not always from the office; job-sharing; working a full week in four days, and; working full-time but outside of traditional hours. My point is that lots of employees – women and men – want a full-time role but they want a measure of flexibility that goes with it.
It’s important to make these distinctions because there is a stigma around part-time workers. Part-timers miss out on career opportunities because they are not seen as committed to their career. I think this is wrong but it undoubtedly happens. Terrance Fitzsimmons at UQ Business School, the academic who delivered fascinating research recently into how successful women tended to have had tough childhoods, says: “Women who wish to progress to CEO roles need to be able to occupy a line role and should try to avoid part-time roles if possible, since these are not valued on a CV and are widely viewed as negative.”
So let’s stop assuming that all requests for flexible work are automatically a request to work three-days a week. I’ve worked long hours in previous roles with two young children but I was fortunate enough to be able to do it extremely flexibly.
What that meant was coming in late if I had to, working very late at the office when it was needed, leaving early in the afternoon to pick up kids when necessary, working from home every night and even, sometimes, just leaving the office to take a mental health break for a couple of hours so that I had the energy to do my job and be a mother.
A lot of women want that kind of flexibility so that they can do a demanding job and have a family life. They want an employer who is focused on output and who trusts them to get the job done. They relish being held to extremely high standards to do this and welcome performance management.